RR - rereading your original post and your response, keying into the adjective modifier “hunting” made me realize the actual reason for the phenomena you’re observing: one thing which has really caused this shift is the overwhelming decline of hunting. Guys aren’t buying hunting scopes any more - they’re buying scopes for everything else which is done with a rifle in droves, but hunting is spiraling into the abyss. Long range hunting, or “western/backcountry hunting” is more popular now than ever, but the scopes used aren’t the typical low to mid-range magnification scopes used in Eastern type or stand/ambush hunting.

Hunters also are advantaged to use side parallax correction.

Since you mentioned 4-12x with AO and SF, are your Nikons or Leupolds? I’ve used both brands in AO and SF and absolutely confirm the parallax swing with increasing magnification. The parallax error potential is there even at lower mag, we just can’t see it as clearly, or rather, don’t notice the blur as dramatically.

Also a side musing in this topic: adding larger wheels to the SF knob helps tune parallax with a more precise feel, more like an AO, and 3D printing has made getting wheels made super simple.